NEWSWEEK: “The Nightingale’s Song” has an interesting approach: using five men to explain a notion you had about Vietnam. Robert Timberg: When Iran-Contra broke, I was the White House correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, and three people [McFarlane, Poindexter and North] who had worked in the White House were right at the heart of it. Since I shared their background in various ways, I got a sense that there was something going on I wanted to know more about.
I thought I wanted to write the real story of the Iran-Contra scandal. Fairly quickly I realized what interested me was the extent to which the Vietnam War and its aftermath were playing into the way McFarlane, Poindexter and North supposedly had acted. In some ways I think Iran-Contra was the price for Vietnam.
I expanded the characters to include John McCain, then a member of the House of Representatives, and Jim Webb, a best-selling author and former Marine, who had served as secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration. It became my belief that Vietnam was continuing to haunt the nation and would stay on that course through at least the end of the century. These five guys became what I hoped to be metaphors for [that] belief.
Does Vietnam still haunt, in terms of Iraq and the neocon push for war? For a lot of those people Vietnam still sits out there, but it means different things to different people. I don’t at the moment see it with the neocons, but more with the [Armed Services], with what came to be known as the Powell/Weinberger Doctrine of Overwhelming Force. And that was certainly a reflection of the Vietnam War—the sense that if we were going to go to war, we should have the nation behind us and we should be sure that the troops had everything necessary to win.
Did some of the anger and bitterness that many people felt about Vietnam bleed into Iraq? Maybe not, because it’s as if 9/11 shut down that chapter and a whole new book opened. It wasn’t a book without a prologue, but Vietnam was not the player it might have been. If there’s any Vietnam element now, it’s just in the comparison that Iraq has become like Vietnam.
Do you agree with that comparison? There are a lot of ways you can compare Vietnam and Iraq, depending on who you are and what you’re trying to prove. Much of the [criticism] has come from retired military people who hearken back to the strategic failures of Vietnam.
It’s very hard to draw the distinction for the emotional element. Just two weeks ago, the Marine Corps swore in its new commandant, Gen. James Conway, who is the first Marine commandant who did not serve in Vietnam. Vietnam is in many ways a long ways behind us, and a lot of us who served there and felt the various things we felt, we’re starting to die off. Hopefully it won’t be too quick, but we’re not as deeply embedded in the main current of American thought right now as we might have been. On the other hand, two of my “Nightingales”—John McCain and Jim Webb—are certainly very active.
Are you surprised that these two characters in your book are prominent politicians now? I certainly thought there was great potential for John McCain to become a major political figure, as he has, but I thought the other politician out of the group would be Ollie North. He hasn’t resurfaced politically [since his 1994 Senate defeat] but he has reinvented himself. I’m not a great fan of Fox News, but when I turned it on during the war and saw Ollie in Iraq, I thought he was a damn good war correspondent.
Jim Webb was a surprise in a way. A lot of the things that people saw during the campaign made them say, “Jim just isn’t a politician,” and that’s right. But I’ve always had this feeling that there are three people in this world you don’t underestimate: Ronald Reagan, John McCain and Jim Webb.
Does Webb have the temperament for success on Capitol Hill? I don’t think Jim is going to go around kicking people in the shins. Before he became Secretary of the Navy he was Asst. Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs. That’s the kind of position where you’ve got to compromise. But one thing—and McCain shares this as well—you can’t push Jim around. You can’t scare him. And when he decides something that he thinks is right, he’s not going to budge an inch. It’s a mistake to think he’s going to blend in or that he wants to blend in. Jim, more than anybody that I know, still feels the anger and pain and betrayal of Vietnam.
What’s your reaction to Webb’s recent flap with President Bush? I wasn’t surprised. In the same situation I wouldn’t have done it, but he’s Jim Webb and I’m not. Jim is who he is. He’s trying to be a good politician, but he’s got a kid over in Ramadi. If I had a kid in Ramadi, I would not be in very good emotional shape.
What about McCain’s chances in 2008? If he can win the nomination, he can win the presidency. He’s got a hell of a head of steam. A few people might feel that speaking at Liberty University, after denouncing [Jerry] Falwell during the 2000 campaign, shows McCain is just another politician. Maybe. But if you can make friends with people who have been your enemies without violating any ethical standard, it’s a good thing.
